


A Slash Fic

by Androids_in_Metropolis



Category: Palo Alto (2013)
Genre: Angst, Cute, F/M, Fluff, M/M, angsst, gay as Dumbledore, tumblr request for teddy/fred angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 10:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4784654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Androids_in_Metropolis/pseuds/Androids_in_Metropolis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teddy and Fred find ways to work things out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Slash Fic

**Author's Note:**

> Please review :)

Teddy was lonely. 

Teddy was spiralling out of control when he met Fred; He didn’t know what he had or what he wanted. His parents had just divorced, and his sister was getting older (no longer wanted to play with him, let him pick her up from school or babysit her when she had friends over). His friends were getting older too-Drinking, smoking, trying so hard to prove that they were all grown up. 

The thing was, they weren’t grown up. They were lost kids without supervision and without a purpose. They had nothing better to do-Nothing worth speaking of, anyway. They had school and homework and jobs, sure, but that was nothing compared to the social hierarchy that they had built up themselves and were left to maintain. 

Teddy...Teddy was just like the rest; Running around and pretending to have a task at hand. He did his homework, and then he got drunk. He went to parties after classes and told his mom he was doing fine. He told his friends he was feeling stoned. He told his sister to never grow up and he told his dad to go to hell. He told his teachers the square root of 150 and what the capital of India was. He made his way up and lost people along the way. 

His mom didn’t know what was going on; She didn’t understand. His sister was too young to understand and his dad didn’t care. 

No one knew the day his best friend died; He had killed himself. ODed in the back seat of his friend’s jeep on the side of the road on a school night. Teddy didn’t find out until a few days later. He didn’t go to the funeral. 

That day he stayed home from school, sick as a dog. He didn’t tell anyone why he was crying on the bathroom floor, vomit in his blond curls and his hands shaking against the toilet seat. He was terrified, and exhausted, and lost. His friend was dead. His mom didn’t know and his sister could get hurt in a world like this. 

His mom came home that night and everything was back to normal. She was none the wiser for her son’s pain. She still sent him to school the next day, telling him to say hi to Jack. Jack had died. She didn’t know that, though, and what you don’t know can’t hurt you. 

She never hurt for Jack. 

\------------------------------------------

Fred was the new kid. He was the wildest of the wild ones; He didn’t give a shit. He didn’t have a family like most of the other kids did, keeping them somewhat grounded. His dad was as high as he was, and the liquor cabinet had no locks. His house was an open invitation, and parties were constantly raging. 

His dad was a professor at the Palo Alto college, teaching Fine Arts throughout Chinese History. His students got their drugs off him, and their free booze too. He was the ‘cool’ teacher which left Fred pretty much alone and left to his own devices. 

He taught himself to drive, failing the test four times. His dad bought the car. He taught himself how to do his homework, missing 1 out of 10 questions. His dad signed his permission slips, giving him permission to forge his signature so he wouldn’t bother him about it. 

He taught himself everything he knew, including how to kiss away the pain of being alone and how to let someone else have total control of his body. That’s why he slept around so much, or at least, that’s what his guidance counselor told him. She told him that he wanted so badly to be loved that he would sleep with anyone, as long as someone was willing to tell him what to do. 

That was the last time Fred had gone to counseling. 

\----------------------------------------

Fred met Teddy before Teddy met Fred. It was at some senior party and the two juniors were drunk out of their minds but Fred was less so and remembered introducing himself to Teddy before the other boy doubled over, hurling his rotting guts onto Fred’s shoes. 

That’s how they met, Fred remembering and Teddy having to meet him again before he recalled his name. They were friends within minutes. Teddy liked that Fred reminded him of Jack, but on the other hand, that scared the hell out of him; After all, Jack had died, leaving Teddy all alone. He knew Fred could end up the same way and that left him even more reckless, living for every moment. 

Teddy liked to draw, and Fred wasn’t a half bad painter. They would hang out at Teddy’s house after school when there wasn’t a party readily available or too much homework and they would draw each other. They were higher than Lenon, letting the other have their way while they posed and joked and jumped around. Teddy posed in the nearly-nude for Fred’s modern rendition of Apollo (no-homo, bro). Fred made an excellent abb model. 

“I...I wanna kiss you, and I’m high, bro,” Fred mumbled, leaning over Teddy’s posed body, his sketch pad between them. His pencil had fallen to the floor, his hands were resting on Teddy’s plaid covered thighs, his lips brushing over Teddy’s cheek. 

“I’m high enough to say yes, but bro, no homo,” Teddy joked, kissing Fred hungrily. He was sick and tired of always remembering Jack as Fred and visa versa and this was a way to set them apart; He never did anything like this with Jack, and much as he had liked him and he liked Fred too for the same reasons, he needed to keep them as two different people in his mind. 

They were definitely two different people now. 

\----------------------------------------------------------

“Hey, why do you always say ‘no homo’ before we kiss?” Fred asked, his voice low. He was blushing. He had feelings for Teddy-Feelings of the distinctly homo variety. Fred hadn’t really thought about it like that; He had always been with who ever he had been into at the time, never thinking if it was homo or no. Teddy, on the other hand, definitely had a line between the genders. 

“Cause, I don’t even know why,” Teddy giggled, leaning into Fred. “Look, if you wanna try...you know, being an actual couple. You know, not just, well, whatever we are, then I’m up to it. The whole school thinks I’m a stoner, which I am, and totally worthless anyway, not to sound homophobic or anything, just...I mean, I haven’t got anything to lose,” Teddy mumbled, blushing deeper than Fred (Deeper than any red he had seen recently, in fact). 

“So, you don’t mean anything by it?” Fred asked, a little bit warey. He was a little bit scared, but he liked the idea of being a thing with Teddy and if Teddy wanted to try it…

“No, I don’t...Well, not really. It’s more just a guy thing, kids do it at school in the locker room when they’re joking around. Fred,” Teddy asked, looking through his virtually invisible eyelashes, “Have you been with, you know, both?” 

Fred laughed, pushing away from Teddy. This was ridiculous...tip toeing around the subject. Teddy was being silly. If he wanted to try it with him, fine, but why was he being so silly about it? Why was he being so...so school boy-y?

“Yes, I have. Look, Teddy, are we a couple or not?”

“Yeah, I mean...Look, I just, I’ve never really been with anyone, period, and you’ve had all the experience, and if we’re a couple I mean, do you mind?” 

Fred burst out laughing, really this time, laying back against Teddy on the bed. 

“Teddy, I don’t care whether you’ve ever kissed anything other than your pillow, I like you...isn’t that enough? Anyway, last time I was too high to care if you kissed like a fish or not,” Fred laughed, pushing himself up on his elbows and looking at his friend’s pretty, blue eyes. “I mean, you’ll learn, and if you don’t wanna do that stuff, we can just talk, or draw like we do, or whatever.” 

Teddy leaned across the bed, kissing Fred gently, hardly more than a peck. 

“That’s not bad,” Fred mumbled, deepening it and then pulling away, holding Teddy’s hand. “You’re really perfect, you know that?” 

For the first time in a long time he had forgotten about Jack and forgetting him and he had forgotten that he was lonely and he wasn’t tired when Fred was around. Fred’s words were bouncing off the inside of his head, leaving him feeling them and feeling happy and tired. 

“You’re perfect too,” he chuckled, playing with Fred’s curls. 

“No homo,” Fred smiled, kissing Teddy’s nose.

“No, all the homo.”


End file.
